


Dancing for Peace

by Silverbulletsdeath



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dancing, F/M, Interspecies Romance, Racism, Scars, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-09
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-07-13 23:20:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7142321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silverbulletsdeath/pseuds/Silverbulletsdeath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Judy Hopps has settled, but settling's not that bad when you end up being one of the dancers for Gazelle.  In an effort to show unity, Gazelle's manager decided to have a contest where one lucky prey animal became a dancer for Gazelle's performances.  Too bad Gazelle thinks this is just an attempt to pander to the prey and weed out her tigers.  </p>
<p>Judy doesn't know this.  All she wants to do is dance, to show the world she accepts everyone.  When the world accepts her and rejects the tigers, and Gazelle rejects her for her tigers, that's when she meets Nick Wilde, every stereotype of a horrible predator animal who humiliates her and shows her that she's just a pawn in a game against the inevitable.  </p>
<p>The chips are down, Judy will prove that despite scars from her past, she's still kick-butt and prove that predator and prey can live together in harmony.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dancing for Peace

Zootopia was the center of the world.  Or it should have been.  The thing about the city was that it was big and huge, and impossible to win.  Judy had known plenty of hopeful sisters, brothers, and cousins that had gone to the city looking for something and come home saying that they had found where they had belonged at last.  Judy wasn’t like though.  She wasn’t going with a vague dream, scheme, or even for a degree.  She had just had the chance in a lifetime.  And then, after it was over, Judy knew she was going home again.  Eventually.  The tour was only a year, a uniting and inclusive movement that had seen hundreds of applicants, and finally it was down to twenty who would go the Rainforest District for the final showdown.

So, yeah, the whole thing could be over in three days.  Today Judy said goodbye to her family and went to Zootopia.  She stayed in the resort tonight night, danced the next day, celebrated with whoever won, and then was sent back went home.  Judy shook her head, a smile forming on her lips. Her parents said that it used to be that I had eyes as big as the world, and no one could tell me what to do.

But somewhere in high school, things had changed.  First having to settle for being in the dance club of all things, and then Gideon.  Judy touched her face.  Maybe, once, she had wanted to be a police bunny.  But in truth, she loved to dance, and dancing for Gazelle, that would be meaningful. 

With a shake of her head, she pushed those thoughts aside.  Her parents were in a state of mostly confusion.  On one hand, unlike her five other siblings, Judy wasn’t threatening to leave forever, at most for a year or so, but most likely only a couple of days.  Just a trip into the big city, not like they hadn’t done that before on a field trip, even one rather disastrous family reunion. 

No, what worried them was the tigers. 

Which was stupid.  None of Gazelle’s tigers had gone savage.  Plus, there were all sorts of protection surrounding Gazelle.  Some of it had to be also to protect Gazelle.  Plus, Judy wasn’t actually worried about them.  She didn’t believe that whole thing.  Predators were going through a rough time.  The world was going through a rough time, but that didn’t mean that the world turned hateful.

Judy took in a deep breath, stealing herself as she felt the car slow.  She looked out the window, and sighed in relief when she saw they were at the train station.  Her parents might seem a little closed minded and fearful of everything, but they always had supported her when it really mattered, for the most part.  Though that would never stop them from putting their two cents in.

“Alright pumpkin,” said her father, slapping his leg. “Here we are.”

His ears were twitching and finally both her papa and mama left the car.  Judy sighed.  One more talk before she left.  Was she a horrible daughter thinking that she would rather skip this whole thing and go right to the part where she was on the train?  She loved them, but sometimes their worry got to her.  Buried itself into her head and made her start to question herself.  Was she really strong enough to make it in the big city?  And what would happen if she didn’t make it?

“Judy, Jude the dude?” Judy shook her head, looking to where her mother was looking at her through the window of the car.  Judy shook her head.  If she didn’t make it, she didn’t make it.  She made it to the last twenty, if that didn’t prove she was a good dancer, who knew what could.  Their local theatre might be more interested in her with that to add to her papers. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, it’s going to be great mama.  You’ll see.  I’ll dance with Gazelle for a year, get some good publicity for tolerance and understanding, and by then I’m sure they’ll be a cure,” said Judy in a blur, a smile lighting her face.  Her mother flinched, but her father forced a sort of smile.

“I’m sure Gazelle can do it.  She’s been speaking for understanding since the beginning. You don’t have to be that mammal,” said Papa. He reached out and stroked her ears.  Judy smiled and batted at him, pretending irritation even as she smiled.  She might not be afraid of the predators, but the big city, the competition, that was getting under her skin a little. “I just want you to be safe.”

“Papa,” said Judy, tears entering her eyes, she threw herself at him, dragging him into a bone breaking hug.  They were so different from each other.  Her father wanted to be safe, to settle into a life as a farmer with a husband that would help support their farm, perhaps expand onto another if she was really ambitious.  The thing was, he never had this argument with anyone else that left.  Yes, he would say they should stay home, he would say they would have their room when they got back.  But  he never said they were being stupid.  He never said they were delusional.  He never brought up their past mistakes.  Their past scars.  He never called them an inny. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and they pulled back.  There were tears in her Papa’s eyes, but he smiled, almost a real one, and brushed a paw over Judy’s cheek, following the line the three marks made across her right eye. “You’ll be safe.  You’ll come back to me safe.”

He was crying.  He hadn’t cried last night.  He’d just screamed.  Judy felt herself smile.  It was sad and drawn out, and it broke Judy’s heart. 

“I’ll see you in a couple of days’ papa.  You’ll see,” said Judy, ruffling up his fur a little.

“No, you’ll win this thing darling.  You always were my little Jude the Dude,” said her father, like that meant anything.  And maybe it did to him, but it had always just been her nickname, so Judy just smiled and hugged him tighter. “I want you to take this.”

In his hand was Fox Begone.  Just a little bottle.  The spray would only sting them.  Make it easier for her to get away.  Judy took a deep breath, fingers shaking as she clenched her hand around the spray. She took another deep breath.  He was just trying to protect her.  Judy forced herself to put the spray in her pack. 

“Well, your train is going to leave in a minute.”

Judy turned to her mama, smiling, and gave her a hug. Then backed up, hoping a little as she pulled her bag toward the train. Soon she was settled, bag stored close by as she sat up high, looking out the windows and waiting with bated breath for it to start.  Then she shook her head.  The last dance wasn’t until tomorrow. 

Then Judy laughed to herself.  She was letting herself get caught in her father’s thoughts, in her parents’ paranoia and the need to settle, to never go beyond what was comfortable.  Before Judy had always thought about the future.  It was never the last dance.  It was always the first step to her dream.  Whether it was the tape, the district dance, the Burrows fire week.  It had always been the first dance to victory. 

This was like the first time she set up her camera.  Her Mama holding her phone as Judy danced across the floor.  Because this time it wasn’t the same old dance Judy had rigged together from Gazelle’s old chorography, this one was simply inspired by what she seen.  Though it was still a song by Gazelle.  Judy scrolled to her music, finding Try Everything and put her feet into fifth position, her arms relaxing and then in her head, she was off.  The fun thing about Gazelle was that she never was just hiphop, she was a dash of everything.

Judy had cobbled this dance together, based on her hip hop, ballet, step, belly, and jazz.  Judy had shown it to her family, who had clapped and not gotten it at all.  Then she showed it to one of her favorite dance instructors who had called it inspired.  Judy trusted her a little bit more, but she was still a small town rabbit.  Mostly Judy worried her dance was too confused to interest anyone.

Finally, the song ended, and Judy let out a breath, reaching down and unclipping her phone from her belt and putting the song on repeat.  And then she looked around.  She was already deep into Zootopia. She watched as the buildings flew past, each a blur.

She took in a deep breath and then laughed to herself.  Then they were entering a wooded area.  Had to be the Rainforest District.  This is where it would be decided here she would either sink or swim.  Judy felt her chest swell.  No, she wouldn’t fail.  They would see it in her dance, they would see that she was the prey that would bind them together.  A normal Joe.  Not some overprotected pop singer who no one could take seriously.  Judy would show them that predators weren’t savage.  That she wasn’t afraid and that they didn’t need to be afraid either. 

Judy could feel the train slowing and hopped down, not wanting to miss her spot.  She took her bag, settling it by the door when she froze.  She hadn’t seen what had been on the posters before.  She’d been so set on getting a good view of the city, half of which she had squandered by closing her eyes and pretending to do a dance that she now could do in her sleep.  That often played parts in her dreams. 

There was this thing about propaganda that always got under Judy’s skin.  Maybe it was just the insincerity that made her insides squirm, or maybe because she had seen how that the blatant idiocy of it had somehow fooled so many of her relatives and loved ones.  Judy sighed, shaking her head.  The collar was so prominent.  A black belt around the neck with a glowing red light.  Hideous in concept, but coupled with a smiling tiger placing it around his son’s neck with the slogan “safety for all”, just made Judy’s stomach twist into impossible knots. 

No.  Maybe Judy wasn’t a doctor, but the facilities for their holding were notorious for being understaffed and overrun, the cure losing focus as they were overwhelmed with patients for the last four years.  No, not just numbers, also a loose of staff.  It had started when Judy was a sophomore in high school. Nothing much, just stories from the cities of fourteen victims. It had hit her burrows when the number in the city had risen to twenty-five.  It seemed so slow and then… Judy touched her cheek again. 

Counting the outlying cities, now there were two-hundred and fifty-six effected.  Prey refusing to work in the hospital out of fear.  Well, that wasn’t Judy.  Maybe she didn’t have the mind for being a doctor, but she could be a face to all those prey, show them that they had something to fight for.  The predators were a part of their world, their city, their lives, and they needed help.  Their way of life needed help, and abandoning and stigmatizing ten percent of their population was despicable. 

Judy shook her head.  The dance tomorrow.  She would show the judges.  She would show Gazelle, and then she would show the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Done on a whim.


End file.
